


Chef Beth

by DomesticatedTendencies



Series: Thinking Out Loud [4]
Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Beth Greene Doesn’t, Beth can’t Cook, Break out the fire extinguisher, Daryl Dixon Swears, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Mechanic Daryl Dixon, Nosy Neighbors, One Shot Collection, Someone Order a Pizza, Stand Alone, Surprise Ending, Teacher Beth Greene, all the damn fluff, bethyl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-19 04:09:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12402693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DomesticatedTendencies/pseuds/DomesticatedTendencies
Summary: “Daryl thought Beth was a great wife. She made sure every bill was paid on time, kept their apartment spotless, filled his thermos with coffee every morning before he left for work and greeted him every night with a smile and a kiss, asking him about his day. She truly was a great wife. She was just a really shitty cook.”Part of the Thinking Out Loud series. Takes place after “Zombie Apocalypse” and “That The Best You Got” but can be read as a stand alone.





	Chef Beth

**Author's Note:**

> So a quick note. I’ve been married almost ten years and like Beth in this AU, I was extremely young. As my pen name implies, I’m fairly domesticated now but in those early days I had quite a few kitchen mishaps. The recipes mentioned in this story are real. I will gladly share them. The crockpot is amazing and I do not recommend cooking with brown paper bags. You’ve been warned.
> 
> Also, enjoy the fluffy fluffy mush!

Daryl was exhausted. Two weeks straight of ten hour days and working lunches at the garage. He liked his job, hell he loved the paychecks he was bringing in, but today he was worn out. He couldn’t wait to shuck off his greasy clothes, crack open a beer, and get some decent food in him. Only one thing stood in his way. Make that one blonde headed girl.

No one could deny that he loved his wife. He’d walk through fire for that girl. Hell, he'd die for her if it came down to it. People had said he was crazy taking up with someone 15 years his junior, after all what could a girl barely out of high school possibly know about being a wife, but it wasn’t like that. Daryl thought Beth was a great wife. She made sure every bill was paid on time, kept their apartment spotless, filled his thermos with coffee every morning before he left for work and greeted him every night with a smile and a kiss, asking him about his day. She truly was a great wife. She was just a really shitty cook.

To say she couldn’t cook wasn’t exactly fair. She could cook. In fact there were a couple of things she made that were pretty good. Spaghetti was one. She’d brown up some meat, open a jar of sauce, throw in some seasonings, it wasn’t half bad. Burgers were another thing she could manage. Make up some patties, throw on some cheese. He loved it. Hell, he’d taught her himself how to cook up a venison steak, and by now she had that down pat. Toss a potato in the microwave and he was happy. She even had a couple of meals she could throw in the crockpot before leaving in the morning and they’d come back to something halfway decent - soups and stews and such; something she called Mississippi Pot Roast that he liked. Simple, easy recipes. Problem was, Beth wasn’t happy with simple or easy. That girl wanted to be gourmet. 

Some asshole somewhere had got it in her pretty little head that a man should come home at the end of a hard day to a five course dinner. Fancy, over complicated meals served on fine china with strange ingredients that she’d have to go to three different stores to collect. Didn’t matter that she worked all day too, teaching down at the preschool. She’d come home at three o’clock, tie on her apron with the pink polka dots and lace, and set to work on dinner. And she tried, he’d give her that. She tried her damndest to make that rack of lamb with seven sauces or whatever the hell it was, but then she’d get overwhelmed by the next twenty steps in her recipe or the phone would ring and it’d be Maggie and they’d get to talking or she’d suddenly remember the load of laundry she wanted to get done, and it was all just too much for her. The sauce boiled over and the lamb started to burn and Beth ended up on the floor in a fit of tears wondering how the hell the professional chefs on tv made it look so goddamn easy. Personally, Daryl blamed Food Network.

As soon as his bike slid in to his assigned spot beside Beth’s car he knew. He could smell it in the air. Something acrid and charred and vaguely like Christmas. His nostrils flared as he undid his helmet. It smelled almost like burning pine needles but that couldn’t be right unless she’d decided to try something new and start up a campfire in the living room. He heaved a growly sigh.

“Your wife has been at it all day,” Their nosy downstairs neighbor Mrs. Horowitz grinned toothlessly from her folding chair on her front stoop. 

“Yup,” Daryl grumbled, shouldering his canvas knapsack.

It was almost 6:30 and Daryl knew Beth had had a half day at work. Staff development or some shit, but she’d have come home around noon. There was no telling what she’d be getting in to with all that time in the kitchen, but knowing Beth the way he did it couldn’t amount to anything good.

As he mounted the stairs he thought about suggesting that she take up knitting or something. Anything to keep her out of the kitchen. She could make scarves for the needy or else volunteer down at the rescue mission. On second thought maybe not; she’d probably try to make them some overcomplicated soup and the poor bastards would never eat. He vaguely remembered seeing a flier for cooking classes down at The Y but he thought against that too.

He was about halfway up when he heard the high pitched complaints of the smoke detector. Damn it, he cursed. He could hear Mrs. Horowitz snicker from down below as he started to haul ass up the stairs.

“Beth!” He shouted, the door sticking like it always did and he had to give it a solid heave with his shoulder to get it to budge. “Beth!”

“I’m okay. It’s okay,” Came her reedy reply. Then a loud crash followed by, “Ouch! Gosh dang it!”

He dropped his bag and helmet and shot off in a sprint towards to kitchen where gray smoke was starting to billow from the doorway. He skidded to a stop in his work boots. Beth was standing in the middle of the narrow kitchen, the oven open and a roast pan on the floor at her feet as she clutched her hand to her chest and looked up at him with eyes the size of saucers. From the looks of it there wasn’t a single pan they owned that she hadn’t used, in fact she could have borrowed some for all he knew. A big stockpot was boiling over with foamy water on the stovetop and something ominously red and gelatinous bubbled like a witches brew in a saucepan. The garbage can was overflowing with trash by the sink and the counter was completely covered with junk he couldn’t even begin to make hide nor hair of. The stand mixer she’d gotten as a wedding gift was going, the bowl missing and the whisk beating at nothing all while the microwave hummed. There were cabinets open and the oven smoking and at the heart of it all stood Beth with the charred roast pan at her feet and what looked to be a smoldering paper sack, the ruined edges curling as they burnt away to nothing, revealing what looked like the black remains of a carcass inside.

Daryl’s dark brow bunched together between his eyes, “The hell?”

“I... I...” Her lips were trembling and her eyes brimmed with glassy tears.

“Naw Beth,” He groused, ‘cause he was tired and he hated when she cried. “Don’t.”

“I’m sorry,” She whimpered, fighting like hell to hold back the tears. “I was trying to surprise you.”

“With what?” He barked, stretching on his toes to swat at the smoke detector above the door. “Surprise me by burnin’ up the whole damn place?”

“I didn’t mean to,” She pouted, her hand still hugged to her chest.

He looked at her, his grim mouth turning up in the corners with pity. He never could stay mad at her for long. Even when she backed her car in to the same post in the complex parking lot for the third time. He’d been pissed for a minute then pulled the dent, patched it up with some bondo, and finally asked the building manager if they could move spots. There was no point in trying to act upset with her.

He gave a resigned sigh, “You hurt yourself?”

“No,” She was shit liar.

“Let me see,” He reached for her hand, pulling it away from her chest so he could take a look. 

She’d burned an angry welt across the palm probably trying to pick up the roast pan without an oven mitt. The skin was silvery and raised but he doubted it was bad enough to blister or require a trip to the ER. He kicked the pan aside with steel toe of his boot and steered her to the sink.

“The hell is all this anyway?” he asked, clearing away enough dirty dishes so he could run her hand under the faucet.

Beth sniffed. “You’re just gunna say it’s stupid.”

“I ain’t gunna say it’s stupid,” He argued, holding firm to her wrist as she tried to pull her stinging hand away.

Beth took a deep breath, then let it out with a sigh. Her mouth open, she was looking at her hand when she took another deep breath before the words came tumbling out.

“You always say your favorite part of Thanksgiving is the leftovers you get to come home with from my parents and the sandwiches the next day - the turkey with my mama’s cranberry sauce. You get so excited for it. Then I found this recipe that said if you cook the turkey in a brown paper bag then it comes out really moist but I think I was supposed to wet the bag first and I forgot,” Her cheeks were pink and the tears were rolling down them in fat drops. “And I’m sorry, you’ve just been working so much lately and I wanted to surprise you with something nice so you could have leftover sandwiches.”

He was watching her, completely perplexed by the girl who wasn’t a girl exactly but who he hoped would always get to keep that sweet, innocent quality that he so loved.

“You were trying to make Thanksgiving dinner?” he asked slowly so as to be sure to get it right.

“Uh-huh,” She sniffed, wiping at her eyes with her good hand.

“But it’s Wednesday,” He pointed out.

“I know.”

“And March,” He added.

“I know!” She wailed. “I just wanted it to be perfect.”

“It is!” He shouted in alarm, then collected her in his arms. “Come here. Come on now. It is perfect. What is it you’re always tellin’ me, it’s the thought that counts? It’s perfect, baby.”

She was crying even harder now, her tears soaking through the cotton of his undershirt. He kissed the top of her head which smelled a little bit like smoke, and then rested his chin there. He held her tight, waiting out the tears, and eyeing the suspicious red bubbling mess on the stove. It did sort of look like her mother’s cranberry sauce.

“Why put yourself through all this?” He asked, smoothing her hair back from her face once she had finally settled. “You know I’m perfectly happy with whatever you make. I love your spaghetti.”

“I wanted it to be special,” She bit her lower lip in that way that he found oddly arousing. “It was supposed to be special,” She added in utter disappointment.

“Come on, baby. What’s this all about, huh?” He asked. “So you burned a turkey and made a big ass mess. We can clean it up.”

“I’m pregnant,” She blurted. Her hand, the hurt one, suddenly flew to her mouth like she was trying to collect the words and put them back in.

Daryl took a staggered step back. She was all of 5’5” and barely a buck-a-quarter but she could throw him off completely with just a few words. Or in this particular case, two of them.

“You’re... Pregnant?”

Her big blue eyes were shining over the top of her hand, her response muffled. “Uh-huh.”

“You... you’re sure?”

“Yes I’m sure, Daryl,” She answered in that slightly annoyed way she sometimes snuck in there. “I took three home tests and went to the doctor yesterday afternoon.”

“The hell you didn’t say anything for?” He demanded.

“You’ve been busy!” She shouted back at him.

“So? Something like this you tell me!” He didn’t really know why he was yelling except she had yelled and his goddamn heart was pounding in his chest worse than it ever had before and was that burnt toast he was smelling? Shit, was he about to have a stroke? Nope, it was still just the remains of their would-be dinner.

“I was trying to tell you!” The goddamn tears in her eyes again. “I was trying to tell you with this stupid turkey and this stupid dinner and your stupid leftover sandwiches. I’m due the end of November!”

It was like someone had punched in the gut and knocked the wind out of him. First he couldn’t breathe and then when he could it came in a big gasping breath. 

“You’re pregnant,” He wasn’t asking this time. “We’re having a... a baby. You and me.”

“Uh-huh,” She nodded, her lips turning up in a smile.

“Jesus Christ, Beth,” His eyes were wide and his chest heaving beneath his leather vest. “Jesus Christ!”

“Are you mad?” She asked. She was biting her lip again, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet.

“No, I ain’t mad!” He was yelling again. Shit, Mrs. Horowitz was probably loving this downstairs, nosy old biddy that she was. “Jesus Christ!”

Then he was hugging her, his arms tight around her shoulders. She was having a baby. They were having a baby. Of course they had talked about it before; Beth had always known she wanted kids and while Daryl hadn’t been quite as convinced he wanted her to be happy. But now that it was actually happening - Beth was pregnant and he was the father - he realized how much he actually wanted it.

The Dixon’s were having a baby.

But first, Daryl was ordering a pizza.


End file.
